With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕

the tent in company with his brother Nureddin, the Sultan Galga, Tugai Bey, and many murzas, and later sent for Hmelnitski.

The hetman, though he had been drinking, appeared at once. Bowing and placing his fingers to his forehead, his beard, and his breast, he waited for the question.

The Khan looked long at the castle, shining in the distance like a gigantic lantern, and nodded his head slightly. At last he passed his hand over his thin beard, which fell in two long tresses upon his weasel-skin shuba, and asked, pointing to the gleaming windows⁠—

“Zaporojian hetman, what is that?”

“Most mighty Tsar,” answered Hmelnitski, “that is Prince Yeremi giving a feast.”

The Khan was astonished. “A feast?”

“He is giving a feast for the slain of tomorrow,” said Hmelnitski.

That moment new discharges thundered from the castle, the trumpets sounded, and mingled shouts reached the worthy ears of the Khan. “God is one!” muttered he. “There is a lion in the heart of that infidel.” And after a moment of silence he added: “I should rather be with him than with you.”

Hmelnitski trembled. He paid for the indispensable Tartar friendship, and besides was not sure of his terrible ally. Any whim of the Khan, and all the hordes might turn against the Cossacks, who would be lost beyond redemption. Hmelnitski knew this, and knew too that the Khan was aiding him really for the sake of plunder, gifts, and unfortunate captives, and still looking upon himself as a legitimate monarch, was ashamed in his soul to stand on the side of rebellion against a king, on the side of such a “Hmel” against such a Vishnyevetski. The hetman of the Cossacks often got drunk, not from habit alone, but from desperation.

“Great monarch,” said he, “Yeremi is your enemy. It was he who took the Trans-Dnieper from the Tartars; he hanged, murdered murzas like wolves on the trees, as a terror; he intended to visit the Crimea with fire and sword.”

“And have you not done damage in the uluses?” asked the Khan.

“I am your slave.”

The blue lips of Tugai Bey began to quiver. He had among the Cossacks a deadly enemy, who in his time had cut a whole chambul to pieces and almost captured him. The name of that man was pressing to his mouth from the implacable power of revengeful memories; he did not restrain himself, and began to snarl in a low voice: “Burlai! Burlai!”

“Tugai Bey,” said Hmelnitski, immediately, “you and Burlai, at the exalted and wise command of the Khan, poured water on your swords the past year.”

A new salvo of artillery from the castle interrupted further conversation.

The Khan stretched out his hand and described a circle with it enclosing Zbaraj, the town, the castle, and the trench. “Tomorrow will that be mine?” asked he, turning to Hmelnitski.

“Tomorrow they will die there,” answered Hmelnitski, with eyes fastened on the castle. Then he bowed again, and touched with his hand his forehead, beard, and breast, considering the conversation ended.

The Khan wrapped himself in his weasel-skin shuba⁠—for the night was cool, though in July⁠—and said, turning toward the tent: “It is late already!”

Then all began to nod as if moved by one power, and he went to the tent slowly and with dignity repeating in a low voice: “God is one!”

Hmelnitski withdrew also, and on the road to his quarters muttered: “I’ll give you the castle, the town, booty, and captives; but Yeremi will be mine, even if I have to pay for him with my life.”

Gradually the fires began to grow dim and die, gradually the dull murmur of thousands of voices grew still; but here and there was heard the report of a musket, or the calling of Tartar herdsmen driving their horses to pasture. Then those voices were silent, and sleep embraced the countless legions of Tartars and Cossacks.

But at the castle there was feasting and revelry as at a wedding. In the camp all expected that the storm would take place on the morrow. Indeed the throngs of the mob, Cossacks, Tartars, and other wild warriors marching with Hmelnitski had been moving from early morning, and approached the trenches like dark clouds rolling to the summit of a mountain. The soldiers, though they had tried in vain the day before to count the fires, were benumbed now at the sight of this sea of heads. This was not yet a real storm, but an examination of the field, the intrenchments, the ditch, the ramparts, and the whole Polish camp. And as a swollen wave of the sea, which the wind urges from afar, rolls, advances, rears itself, foams, strikes with a roar and then falls back, so did they strike in one place and another, withdraw, and strike again, as if testing the resistance, as if wishing to convince themselves whether the very sight of them by numbers alone would not crush the spirit of the enemy before they would crush the body.

They fired cannon too, and the balls began to fall thickly about the camp, from which answer was given with eight-pounders and small arms. At the same time there appeared a procession on the ramparts with the most holy sacrament in order to freshen the benumbed soldiers. The priest Mukhovetski carried the gilded monstrance; holding it with both hands above his face and sometimes raising it on high, he moved on under a baldachin, calm, with closed eyes and an ascetic face. At his side walked two priests supporting him under the arms⁠—Yaskolski, chaplain of the hussars, a famous soldier in his time, in military art as experienced as any chief; and Jabkovski, also an ex-soldier, a gigantic Bernardine, second in strength only to Pan Longin in the whole camp. The staffs of the baldachin were supported by four nobles, among whom was Zagloba; before the baldachin walked sweet-faced young girls scattering flowers. They passed over the whole length of the ramparts, and after them the officers of the army. The